I eye him closely, reluctant to believe it. He’s granting me his own special nickname? My heart jumps in my chest, and it feels something like giddiness.
He doesn’t bother trying to convince me. He drops my wrist, plucks the knife from my hand and drags the tip on the floor until the eyeball pops off.
More gagging follows suit from the demons, while I watch him mechanically. No one touches my pretty knife.
No one.
He wipes the blood off on his black jeans and then hands it back to me.
My fingers slowly curl around the knife as I eye him, an odd look on my face. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be feeling right now.
He winks at me and then walks back over to Mark.
I take the opportunity to pick through the teeth. I smile triumphantly when I see black eroding this man’s teeth. The sign of decay.
“Mark, are you going to give me the information I need? I want to know where you do the rituals,” Zade demands, his voice devoid of emotion once more.
“Z, I swear, I don’t know anything!” Mark wails, vomit trailing from his thin lips.
Calmly, Zade picks up his hand, digs the tip of his own blade under his fingernail and pops it off with a quick flick of his wrist.
The man screams, his face turning an alarming shade of red and purple.
“Try again,” Zade says evenly. He positions the tip of the knife under another nail, readying for another lie.
“Z, I’m not lying to you!” Another nail, followed by more wails of agony. Once again, Zade positions the knife under the next nail. He slowly lifts the nail, giving the demon plenty of time to cut in.
He takes the bait.
“Okay, wait, wait!” Mark breathes heavily, as tears and snot track down his face. He’s sweating bullets, and the pain and fear has aged him considerably. He licks his lips nervously. “S-some of the kids we take, we take them to an underground club.”
My eyes widen, and without realizing it, I’ve dragged myself off of the dead man and wandered close to the pair. Zade shoots me a warning glare to stay back, but otherwise doesn’t mind my presence.
“Where is this place?” Zade asks.
“You can only access it through a private Gentlemen’s club—Savior’s. You need special access to even get in the club, let alone gain access to the…” he trails off, his face tightening as if he’s dreading his next words. He takes in a deep breath, and something like acceptance settles in his eyes. “To gain access to the dungeon.”
Dungeon? What the hell kind of demons are these people?
“Yeah? And what do you do in this dungeon?”
Clearly, Zade knows exactly what they do, but it seems like he wants verbal confirmation. Like he wants this man to admit to his sins. Makes his death a little more justifiable.
Mark doesn’t like that question. His eyes shift nervously and his mouth flops, but no sounds come out. With another flick of his wrist, Zade tears off another nail.
I smile, giddiness at this man’s suffering bubbling to the surface. It is so pleasing to see them cry and beg for their lives.
Pleas that will go as unanswered as their pleas to the fake gods they claim to worship.
“Fuck, Z! I-I just…” he trails over, as sweat profusely pours into his eyes. He blinks against the sting, more tears trailing down his ruddy cheeks. A sob breaks loose, and Zade positions his knife under the next nail.
“Wait! I said, wait, goddammit! We uh—we perform rituals on them.” He squeezes his eyes shut as soon as the admission leaves his chapped lips.
My mouth pops open as Zade growls out, “Why?”
Mark tightens his lips, a pained expression on his red face. “That’s how we’re sworn in to the secret society. We must perform a ritual and drink the blood of a virgin.”
A plethora of emotions filter through my bloodstream. Rage. So much fucking rage. Disgust, sadness, and even a stab of sharp pain when I think about the pain those poor children are suffering through. All to join a fucking society?
“And this society, you traffick children? Sell them, rape, torture and kill them?”
A single nod, guilt shining in his eyes. Not guilt over what he’s done to innocent souls, but only because he got caught and is now suffering the consequences.
“Is that all you do?”
“No, but that’s the only thing we do that you have a chance of putting a stop to—as small as it is. The rest is deep operations within the government, a lot of it specifically to keep control over the people and make them think they have any control over what happens in their lives.”
He glances at me, and an unreadable expression morphs his face. Now… now he truly looks like a demon. He looks flat-out sinister.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t bother saving them. I would focus on saving yourselves first.”
I step towards him, readying my knife to plunge into whatever body part I reach first, but Zade stops me. His hand swings out, and he casts me a warning look over his shoulder.
But I can see it in his eyes, too. The rage glittering in his yin-yang pools. The desire to torture this man until he’s pleading for death.
“All of you? You all have done this ritual?” Zade asks after a beat, directing his question towards the other two men. He ignores Mark’s ominous warning, but all I want to do is ask what the hell he even means by that.
The other men are all sweating, their white hair molded to their heads, and with potbellies and sagging chins. They all look the same, with slight differences. Old men that have so much money, they’ve grown bored with life. There’s nothing that excites them anymore.
Nothing, except little helpless girls and boys, and their cries of pain.
“If you lie, your death will be
